Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

President Trump's shots at GM have left company insiders deeply troubled

General Motors and its CEO Mary Barra are in President Donald Trump's crosshairs more than most other companies and it has many inside the automaker and across the industry pondering why.

In a matter of 72 hours, starting Friday, the president chided GM for dragging its feet in getting lifesaving ventilators to the front lines in the battle against coronavirus.

Then on Sunday, Trump changed course, extolling GM after it announced its plans two days prior to make ventilators with Ventec Life Systems at GM's Kokomo, Indiana, plant. The FDA-approved ventilators will ship in mid-April. Also, GM will begin manufacturing FDA-cleared surgical masks at its Warren plant next week.

But after Trump castigated GM, then praised it, world headlines exploded.

BBC on Friday: "Coronavirus: Trump orders 'time wasting' General Motors to make ventilators."

Reuters on Sunday: "Trump's attack on GM over ventilators quickly turns to praise."

On March 15, 2017, President Donald Trump speaks at the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti with General Motors CEO Mary Barra and other auto industry executives.(Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM, AFP/Getty Images)

Sold a lemon?

While Trump's scoldings make for spicy headlines, industry observers say they are counterproductive to achieving his goals.

"At some point, GM is going to understand that whatever they do, he’s going to beat on them and that takes away the effectiveness of threatening to beat you," said Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. "If you’ve learned that you could be beaten at any time for anything, then you also learn that there’s no point in making any effort to avoid the beatings."

Others believe Trump's battles with GM over the years, for everything from GM's overseas production to factory closings and making medical devices isn't rooted in any clever political play.

"I believe that Donald Trump is 100% reactive and zero percent strategic," said Jon Gabrielsen, auto industry consultant and economist. "The fact that it seems to me he attacks GM more is a coincidence versus a pattern and I definitely doubt it is strategic. One can speculate that he goes after GM because Mary Barra is a strong woman and that would not surprise me, but how can we know for sure?"

To be fair, one of Trump's biggest 2016 campaign platforms was to add more manufacturing to the United States and protect factory jobs. GM is a major U.S. manufacturer with 48,000 hourly workers across 10 states. When it announced plant closures in 2018, it became a target for Trump to push his agenda.

Or Trump's vitriol might lie in a more simple and humorous explanation.

"It makes me wonder if he ever owned an Oldsmobile 88 sedan and it was a clunker and he's never forgiven them?" Gordon said, half-joking. "That would be the most likely explanation.”

Ventilators now!

In Friday's string of tweets against GM, Trump took square aim:

"As usual with 'this' General Motors, things just never seem to work out. They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, 'very quickly'. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar. Always a mess with Mary B. Invoke 'P.' "

Last week, the New York Times reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was the holdup as it assessed the more than $1 billion cost for the ventilators. Several hundred million dollars would be paid up front to GM to retool the Kokomo plant, the Times reported.

But GM said Friday it will do the work at cost, an unprecedented move. On Sunday, workers were inside the Kokomo plant preparing it for production.

Work being done Sunday at the General Motors manufacturing facility in Kokomo, Indiana, where GM and Ventec Life Systems are partnering to produce Ventec VOCSN critical care ventilators in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.(Photo: AJ Mast for General Motors)

Trump also attacked GM Friday over one of his favorite subjects: The closure of Lordstown Assembly plant, tweeting, "General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!!"

GM sold the Lordstown plant to electric truck maker Lordstown Motors last year.

In a final tweet, Trump alluded to a threat to "Invoke “P” meaning the Defense Production Act.

But on Sunday, the president reversed his view and told reporters he is pleased with the company's efforts following his decision to activate the DPA.

"General Motors is doing a fantastic job," Trump said. "I don't think we have to worry about General Motors now."

GM reaction

All of it has left some GM employees confused and bitter.

"Why is the president only attacking us? What are other automakers doing? Who else has a plant ready to go? Strange he is attacking us," said a person inside GM who declined to be named for fear of repercussions. "We are, by far, ahead of anyone else. He is a master of diverting blame to others. We are not dragging our feet. And we are not negotiating with the government. We are a contract manufacturer for Ventec. Ventec is negotiating with the government."

A GM spokesman declined to comment on the president's Twitter attack saying the company is focused on making ventilators, not a war of words with the White House.

Another GM employee, Larry Foltran, a manufacturing integration engineer, posted on social media, "Our president feels we aren't working fast enough ... aside from being harsh words against my employer, it really bothered me on a deeper level."

Foltran outlined working 14- to 18-hour days for five days to "produce a device completely unfamiliar to us."

"What we've accomplished in five days is incredible," Foltran wrote. "So for those who've read the same tweets, don't believe them."

History

Trump's habit of calling out GM on Twitter goes back to at least 2018 when GM announced it would restructure and cut some 4,000 white-collar jobs and shutter four U.S. manufacturing sites: Detroit Hamtramck Assembly, Lordstown Assembly and transmission plants in Warren and Baltimore.

After talking to GM CEO Mary Barra, Trump scolded GM for the announced closures and said pressure would be brought to bear on the company.

Trump also criticized GM for its operations in China.

....for electric cars. General Motors made a big China bet years ago when they built plants there (and in Mexico) - don’t think that bet is going to pay off. I am here to protect America’s Workers!

General Motors, which was once the Giant of Detroit, is now one of the smallest auto manufacturers there. They moved major plants to China, BEFORE I CAME INTO OFFICE. This was done despite the saving help given them by the USA. Now they should start moving back to America again?

Taking on Lordstown

Around this time last year, Trump took aim at GM and then-local UAW leader Dave Green in tweets.

David Green, president of UAW Local 1112, was one of just seven UAW workers still on the job at General Motors’ Lordstown Assembly Plant as of May 30, 2019. He was laid off May 31, 2019.
(Photo: David Green)

The last Chevrolet Cruze compact car had just rolled off the line at Lordstown when Trump tweeted, "Because the economy is so good, General Motors must get their Lordstown, Ohio, plant open, maybe in a different form or with a new owner, FAST! Toyota is investing 13.5$ Billion in U.S., others likewise. G.M. MUST ACT QUICKLY. Time is of the essence!"

Trump was referring to Toyota's plans to expand investment in U.S. manufacturing plants. The Japanese automaker was bolstering its North American production due to concerns about tariffs.

The next day, Trump then tweeted: "Democrat UAW Local 1112 President David Green ought to get his act together and produce. G.M. let our Country down, but other much better car companies are coming into the U.S. in droves. I want action on Lordstown fast. Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment!"

Democrat UAW Local 1112 President David Green ought to get his act together and produce. G.M. let our Country down, but other much better car companies are coming into the U.S. in droves. I want action on Lordstown fast. Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment!

Later that same day, Trump tweeted: "Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors about the Lordstown Ohio plant. I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union — I don’t care, I just want it open!"

In September 2019, days before the UAW's contract was due to expire, Trump took to Twitter again to tweet, "Here we go again the General Motors and the UAW workers. Get together and make a deal!"

On occasion Trump has targeted Ford, too. In 2018, he commented on Ford's overseas production plans, but the tone was commendation more so than criticism.

“Ford has abruptly killed a plan to sell a Chinese-made small vehicle in the U.S. because of the prospect of higher U.S. Tariffs.” CNBC. This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!

Worker

It’s hard to understand what Trump's motivation was behind the recent tweets against GM over the ventilators, Gordon said.

"GM got off to a bigger, faster start than anybody else on ventilators," Gordon said. "They flew engineers out to Washington state, which was a hotbed of coronavirus. They met with Ventec engineers. They put their global procurement system into high gear and managed to find a lot of parts from all over the world. I don’t know how they could move any faster.”

Gordon said GM has one of the best global procurement operations in the world.

"I’m not sure what the president’s thought process was and what happened between Friday, when GM was a bum, to Sunday, when GM was a hero, because what GM was doing all along was figuring out how medical ventilators get made," Gordon said. "It doesn’t seem to be driven by the president beating them or praising them.”

Gordon said the continuous pounding on GM will not serve Trump well in the end.

“The most likely effect the Trump beatings will have on GM will be to make GM workers resentful of the president," Gordon said. "Workers who think their company jumped to it. Workers who volunteered to get on a plane and go to Washington State will resent it.”